The Kindest Human Being
This is the story of how I met the kindest person on this planet and how he left before it was time. I wrote this mainly for me because I don't want to forget any of it. If you know me, you'll know that I am not the kind of person to share much. So most of what I've written is stuff that I never told anyone and that I would not normally say.
In March of 2013, the two new Teach for America co-CEOs visited Las Vegas as a part of their "Listening Tour." My middle school was chosen as the location for the event, and students, parents, and community members came together to share their experiences with the organization.
At the end of the event, some of the attendees mingled at the door for just a bit longer while others immediately headed home for the night. It was school night, and I wanted to get home as fast as possible; it had been a long day. I purposefully skipped the small talk and started stacking all of the chairs and moving the tables myself. Across the room, a 20-something-year-old guy who I'd never seen before stopped his conversation and came over to help me. When the rearranging was finished, he introduced himself and handed me his business card: Ovik Banerjee, Swiss Army Knife, Downtown Project.
(I can't figure out exactly why this impressed me so much, but that's the kind of person Ovik was. He was so in touch with what other people needed, and he didn't hesitate to drop what he was doing and help others -- even strangers. After we started dating, he asked me why I ever started to like him, as though it was totally unbelievable. I told him that I fell for him the night he helped me stack chairs. Romantic, huh? :) I just had this sense right off the bat that he was such a good person. And I turned out to be so right.)
I'm pretty sure it was that same night that I sent him a friend request on Facebook. (In retrospect, that may have seemed a little too soon/creepy. Oh well.) I discovered that, unlike the typical 20-something, he was not the kind of person to post party pictures, etc. Instead, his news feed consisted of several articles a day -- everything from short Thought Catalog pieces to New York Times features. And I loved it.
In an awkward attempt to make a pass at him, I messaged him and said how much I enjoyed reading the articles he posted (don't judge; I have no clue how to hit on somebody). But it must have worked, because literally two minutes later, he messaged back asking if I would have time to sit down and talk more about education in Vegas and the work I did in that field. I'm pretty sure that was his first attempt at asking me out on a date. Clearly, we were both fairly bad at the game.
Because both of us worked like crazy and had strange schedules, it took over two weeks to find a date and time that worked for both of us. We ended up meeting at a coffee shop downtown and talked for several hours -- and not just about education. From there, we started emailing back and forth, sometimes multiple times per day, getting to know each other the best we could. I learned about his family, his travels, his passions, his beliefs. I learned he didn't drink and was "the most social introvert you'll ever meet."
When our schedules both began to clear up, we met up at Red Mango for frozen yogurt. Long after the shop closed for the night, we sat on the sidewalk in between the lampposts talking about everything from college to Vegas to what makes people happy. He walked me to my car, started to walk to his, turned around, and said, "So... would you like to go on a date sometime? I have this Groupon for a buffet on the strip." (He was the king of Groupons). There was no hesitation in my answer.
We never ended up going on that date. Because the following day, he texted me that there was a food festival downtown and that I was welcome to join him if I wanted to. So I did. We ordered sandwiches (knowing I hated onions, he picked out all of the onions that were melted into the cheese of my sandwich) and we played Jenga at Gold Spike. He showed me all of his favorite places in downtown Vegas. It was obvious how much he loved the community and how much the community loved him. He knew probably 90% of the people we ran into that night. And he stopped to talk to every one of them -- asking them how they were doing and introducing me.
As the night wore down, we headed up to the roof of his apartment building for an amazing view. We sat there in silence until he said, "Would you be terribly upset if I held your hand?" I'm not kidding; that's what he said. It was adorable. (I later find out that he would ask me permission every single time he thought he might make me uncomfortable or nervous.) So we continued to sit in silence, holding hands, until he said, "Wow." I asked him what he was talking about. "It's just... you're so beautiful."
Before I met Ovik, I'd applied to Dev Bootcamp, a 9-week intensive web developer camp in Chicago. When I told him I'd be gone for the entire summer, we started spending as much time as possible together. Picnics, shows on the strip, visiting new restaurants, and my personal favorite: just sitting in his apartment snuggled up reading books. His bookshelves were overflowing with books, and he was a voracious reader. There was one time we tried to read the same book, together, but I eventually gave up because he would finish the page twice as fast as I could. I consider myself a pretty good reader, but he ran laps around me. He knew so much. My favorite thing to do would be to ask him to teach me about some topic I didn't already know. He never ran out of things to tell me about.
A few days before I left for Chicago, I still hadn't found a place for my cat to stay during the summer. Ovik took it upon himself to contact as many people as he could to find a home for my cat. When every option fell through, he decided to take in the cat (even though his roommate was allergic -- sorry Laura!) In the past few days, I have learned that this kindness wasn't just something reserved for me. Every person I've heard talk about Ovik has so many stories of ways he helped them.
My summer in Chicago was so packed and so crazy. But we still talked every single day -- whether by email, text, FaceTime, or silent Google hangouts while my roommate was asleep. We started every single day with a text conversation as I walked to the bus stop. We ended every single night by texting each other our top three moments of the day. He sent me pictures of my cat regularly.
One morning, he told me to get on video chat because he wanted to see my face when I opened an email he was going to send me. I hate surprises, but he seemed especially excited about this so I went along with it. I opened the email which had an mp3 attached to it and these lyrics:
Oh, hi! Oh, Hey. Hello! I think you're swell, and you should know that I'm yours (for at the very least, a little while) And you're smart, funny and kind, and I just want to make you mine so tell me what it is I need to do to see you smile. A lonely mess a couple weeks ago, and you agreed to get fro-yo with me and I knew with the first bite of my frozen treat that we had some of the warmest chemistry. and here we are. And here we go.
Let's take a nap under a tree, we'll curl up tight
with books to read, and when we wake
we'll watch the sun slowly go down.
Because you're my lady luck, my latest squeeze
that I can't give up and I can't wait until you
come back to town.
A lonely mess a couple weeks ago,
and you agreed to get fro-yo with me
and I knew with the first bite of my frozen treat
that we had some of the warmest chemistry.
and here we are.
And here we go. And I just want you to know
That you're my angel in this city of sin and I can't wait for whatever else comes to begin.
I skipped reading the lyrics and opened the mp3. I figured it was a song he heard that he thought I'd like. It took me about two or three listens to realize that the song was about me. As it turns out, he'd emailed a friend stories about us and asked him to turn it into a song.
I'm an incredibly closed-off person when it comes to talking about relationships, but I forwarded that song to my mom and all of my sisters with the subject "Most adorable boyfriend ever?" It was one of the first times I said anything about our relationship to anyone.
Ovik came to visit me for a weekend in Chicago partway through Dev Bootcamp. We ate deep dish pizza, walked along the shore of Lake Michigan, and read under trees in the park. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry; my sole purpose of being there was to watch the baby chickens hatch from their shells. I asked him if it would be ok if I watched them for three hours. He capped it at 45 minutes with me at the baby chicken exhibit before wandering off to explore the rest of the museum. Unlike me, Ovik was so practical :) I stayed and watched two more chickens get out of their shells before he returned and finally dragged me away.
On another weekend, I returned to Las Vegas to get some school stuff done. Both mornings that weekend we ate at one of his favorite downtown restaurants, Eat. He always knew everyone in there and always had something kind to say to them or a question to ask. As he knew how painfully shy I am, he tried his best to avoid dragging me into conversations with people I didn't know. He tried to protect me from everything he thought would make me uncomfortable.
On the evening of my flight back to Chicago, he let me sleep while he packed up my stuff, checked me into my flight, and printed my boarding passes. We drove to the airport. After I went through security, I sent him this text:
"Thanks for printing my boarding passes and keeping track of my keys and making sure we woke up in time to get to the airport and taking me to the airport and carrying my backpack in and letting me sleep on your shoulder outside of security and making sure I didn't forget my belt at security and waiting until I was through security. I want you to know I appreciate those things :) That they aren't lost on me"
His reply:
"Holy wall of text. :p you don't have to thank me for all those things. Is partially my fault you were so tired in the first place. But you're welcome. I guess I'm the same way. Like to express thanks. Don't like receiving them though. Makes me uncomfortable. Just like you get when someone compliments you."
I think this exchange perfectly illustrates one of the most dangerous characteristics that Ovik and I shared: neither of us were comfortable when the focus was on us, or when we were recognized in some way, or when someone tried to get closer to us. I think there were very few people who either of us ever completely opened up to.
Ovik was incredibly good at getting to know people. He'd ask question after question, and not just because he wanted to seem polite, but because he genuinely cared. And he didn't stop when I wouldn't give him an answer. This generally happened when I was stressed out or anxious, whether it was about Dev Bootcamp, or school stuff, or something else. He wanted to carry the burden for me. I didn't realize that he was carrying his own burdens.
(I could say so much more about that summer, but in the interest of keeping this at least a little shorter than my senior thesis, let's skip to my return to Vegas.)
It's a weird thing when you grow so close to someone who is physically so far away. When you get to know someone without being in close proximity, you miss learning about their quirks. When I returned to Vegas in the fall, this was something we both struggled with.
Our relationship this winter was far from perfect. Because both of us were incredibly busy workaholics, we started out seeing each other maybe once a week, then once every two weeks. He was the one to initiate all of these, and I selfishly put work ahead of spending time together.
The last time I saw Ovik was before winter break. We had dinner at a restaurant in the Downtown Container Park. It was SO COLD (ok, by Vegas standards) and I'm always freezing. He didn't have a jacket to give me, so he literally spent the whole dinner eating with his arm around me (try this sometime -- it cannot be easy!) After dinner, we headed over to his apartment. It was the last time I would be there with him. I started reading a book he had on his shelf called Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope. When I left, he asked me if I wanted to take the book with me. I told him I'd just bookmark my page and leave it at his place for the next time I came over.
Unfortunately, the next time I would be at his apartment was just yesterday with his parents go start going through his apartment. His dad must have read my mind. "Rachel, is there anything you want? Maybe there a book you want to take?"
I can't wait to finish reading it.
In the past few days, so many of Ovik's friends have taken me in to their Downtown family. I think the fact that he had such amazing friends is a testament to how amazing he was himself.
If you're reading this and you've reached out to me, please know that I appreciate it. If you see me in person, I may not say much right now, or ever, because I'm not good at talking. The more someone pushes, the more I shut down. One thing I knew drove Ovik crazy was how silent I'd get when something was wrong. He hated that he couldn't fix my problems. But I think he also understood in a way, because he was the same: neither of us ever wanted to burden anyone else with our struggles.
If you're reading this and you're hurting, please, please reach out to someone. You probably have no idea how many people love you and care about you, and how many people would be devastated by losing you, even if you don't think that is the case. I don't ever want anyone I know to hurt as much as Ovik must have on his final night.
I hope something good can come out of this tragedy. I know that Ovik's parents and his VFA friends are already thinking about what they can do to keep his legacy alive. I'd encourage all of you to start living like he did: Be kind. Learn everything. Connect people. Read a ton. Be curious. Don't judge. Be passionate. Do things that matter. Be bold. Make friends with everyone. Love.
Ovik, I didn't know you were in pain. I didn't know that you were hurting. There are so many things I wish I could change about the past few months, but wishing doesn't change anything. You were the kindest, most generous person I've ever met. I hope that your pain is gone now and that you can smile freely without having to hide anything. I will miss you forever.